musings by michelle

I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m no good at blogging. I may only post once every six months. But I’ve decided to come to terms with that fact, and I will no longer start out a post by apologizing how long it’s been since the last one. Sometimes is better than never, right?

So… I’ll give an update on our house. We have pretty much got our upstairs to a state that I’ll call liveable. We painted every square inch, and that alone did amazing things. All the trim is crisp and white and we opted for fairly neutral wall colors in most rooms. Maybe one day I’ll get around to posting a full house tour.

After Christmas, we turned our attention to the basement. Our babe was going to have her first birthday in early February, and I wanted to have a comfortable space for my parents to come visit and stay with us. So we worked on getting a basement bedroom and the bathroom ready for guests. This project entailed:

Painting everything, of course.

The bathroom had to be nearly gutted.

removed an old, moldy vanity.

installed new floors (which requires removing and re-installing the toilet).

installed new shower head

installed a new vanity, sink, and faucet.

re-hung TP holder, outlet covers, towel racks, etc.

Frosting the windows (with removable film) for privacy. The windows in the basement are those old small window-well types, so I didn’t want to put up curtains or shades to block what little light they let in.

Buy a new queen sized mattress (we actually got a new foam mattress for us and moved ours downstairs).

Buy sheets & towels for guests.

Remove 4 doors (this includes two closet doors) and paint them, and update the knobs. We got brushed-nickel hardware, so we’ve found that a quick coat of brushed-nickel spray paint works great to update the door hinges.

SO. We got all that done in around a month (honestly, hubs did most of that!). Here are some pics!

Guest bedroom

Bathroom

And then the morning that my parents were going to drive out (and stay for a week), OUR BASEMENT FLOODED. That’s right. The hot water heater just rusted out, emptied, and then tried to re-fill all night long while we slept peacefully upstairs.

And it gets worse (or better?). When the water crew came to start drying/cleaning up, they discovered mold from a previous water incident (from before we bought the house, obviously). So the silver lining is that we never would have known that OUR HOUSE HAD MOLD if our basement hadn’t flooded.

We are still in the midst of mold remediation and an insurance claim. Eventually we’ll get to the repair part of the process.

The worst part of it? The bathroom had to be gutted again. ALL. THAT. WORK. =( Down the drain (since the water didn’t). Sidenote — our water heater is located in a closet in the basement with no drain in the floor. Meanwhile, we have a utility room, just a few feet away, with a floor drain. Seriously. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

I’ll end with the positives: our house had mold, and now it doesn’t! And Norah got a whole week with her grandma and grandpa (sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the upstairs spare room) for her first birthday!